


Destroyed

by TardisTexan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, rdficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6181396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisTexan/pseuds/TardisTexan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficathon Prompt:   The Library is destroyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for the River/Doctor Ficathon: The Library gets destroyed, after River’s Sacrifice, and it all gets ruined. The Doctor gets there, but the entire virtual world she was in has been deleted, along with River Song.

The lights were dim in the TARDIS. The Doctor sat with his guitar in his lap. His fingers plucked the strings trying to find a melody. It was wrong, all wrong. Nothing he could play sounded right, not even Beethoven. He sighed and put the guitar back down. Nothing was right, nothing at all. It had been 84 days 5 hours and 16 minutes since the Doctor had left his wife in her back garden and turned his back on her tear stained face for the last time. He had told her that it was time for River to be Professor Song. And she would be amazing, as always. She would be brave and strong and become an inspiration to a whole generation of young students. But what it had really meant was that it was her time to go the Library. It was her time to die. The Doctor's time with her was over. 

The Doctor stood, sat back down, and then stood again. He didn't know what to do with himself. He put one foot in front of the other, wandering around the control room. He had known this was coming. Many hours he laid next to her while she slept, thinking about how he had to be the strong one now and he thought he had prepared himself. But that didn't stop the hole in his chest from sucking all the joy from him. He had not felt whole for one moment since she had been gone.

He knew that it was time to find someone to travel with, someone to brighten his life again. He knew that if he went to Earth, chasing adventure, someone would stumble across his path and make him see everything anew. But he was not ready. He was not ready to move on from River just yet. She had meant more to him than anyone had in centuries, and had given him things that no one ever had.

As he walked around the dim room, he thought about the hours they had spent together in the small house on Darillium. He thought about those moments in the Library, her bravery, her resolve, and how much her love for him had shown through what must have been terrible pain for her. He knew that what they had shared in those twenty four years had given her what she needed for the Library, and he was happy to have been able to finally show her absolutely how he felt for her.

The Doctor found himself standing in front of the central bookcase on the top floor of the console room. Without thinking, he reached out for his copy of The Time Travelers Wife. It was dog-eared and worn and he smiled fondly as he ran his hand across the cover. His River, his time traveling wife, was captured in so many places in the novel. He wondered if someday he would meet the writer and tell him the story that would inspire him. Or perhaps it had been Amy or Rory, or her brother Anthony. 

_Left me..... like a book on a shelf._

His smile turned to a frown as he remembered her words to him. She had tried not to show it, but she had been hurt. Deeply hurt. And now he couldn't do anything about it. She had told him that he had never come back for her, never spoken to her, never said goodbye, and now he couldn't. He couldn't go to her in the Library because damn her, she had told him that he didn't. 

"But wait," he thought, clutching the book to his chest. He had changed the timeline, hadn't he? He remembered Trenzalore, being at his grave with River and Clara and the others, but he had not died on Trenzalore in battle. The stand he had made and the regenerations he had been given had changed the timeline, hadn't it?

He sat down heavily in the chair next to the bookcase and thought through it. He didn't know for sure if a grave on Trenzalore was still in his future or if he had completely changed his future. He should know, he should be able to tell, but he just couldn't quite bring it in to focus. Maybe it was because it was his own timeline, maybe it was because of how much had been erased when he had parted with Clara, he didn't know for sure. 

He replayed the scenes at his grave through his mind again. Did the River who was in the Library then know about the 13th regeneration? It was possible. The damn woman was never straightforward with him when spoilers were involved.

_Say it like you are going to come back._

The Doctor smiled. Was she giving him a message, that he was to come back to her once he knew he could? Or had that version of River who said those words never existed now? Either way, it didn't matter.

_Why would I give her my screwdriver? I saved her!_

He had saved her! Of course he was going to go back. He would not leave her like a book on a shelf. He would not leave her alone, no not this time. 

The Doctor flew down the steps and thrust his fingers into the neural interface. He gave a whoop as the router started to move. He trusted that his ship would take him exactly where he wanted to go, leaving the best when up to her. She would know the best answer to the timelines. His old girl would take him to his wife. 

The Doctor's eyes were closed in concentration, his mind totally focused on where he wanted to go. But his eyes flew open when the cloister bell rang. Less than a second later, the ship shook violently. He yanked his fingers from the neural gel and grabbed the console as the TARDIS rocked to the left and then rose sharply, throwing him to the floor. He pulled himself up, pulling on the controls and got the ship righted, but she still had not landed. He looked at the control panel but didn't understand what he was seeing, so he ran to the door and opened it.

The TARDIS was hovering above a debris field. Chunks of twisted metal swirled and danced below him. It felt like both hearts were in his throat. This is where the Library was supposed to be, this is where River was supposed to be, and it was.. gone. 

The Doctor stepped back into the ship and closed the door. He strode purposely back to the console and started running scans. The debris field was vast. His instruments told him the Library planet still existed, but it had been knocked out of it's orbit. He reset the coordinates, pulled the lever to move the ship, and opened the doors again. 

He found himself above the planet, or what was left of it. It was obvious that there had been a planet destroying explosion outward from the core. The crater was massive, and had cut the planet almost in half. The edges of what was left were blackened and burnt. The buildings that still stood on what remained of the Library were crumbled and wrecked. The Doctor made a small mournful noise. The core of the planet, the supercomputer that held every book that ever was, that held the mind of a child, and the remains of a team, and his wife.. was gone.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments on chapter one. It really means so much and keeps me pushing on when you guys comment.

The Doctor slumped against the door frame, his mind racing. What had happened? What could he do? Where was River? Was she gone forever? Had she done this? Had _he_ done this? He raked a hand through his grey curls, and sat heavily in the bottom of the door. His eyes scanned the surface over and over, looking for anything. He knew that he wouldn't see her, but he desperately wanted to. He sighed and closed his eyes and remembered the last time he saw her.  


River had been standing in the back garden of her little house near the university, sunlight turning her hair into twirls of gold and red. Her face was smiling but he had never seen her eyes hold more sadness in all his years. He had been screaming inside, but holding himself together for her, being strong and sending her off to the end of her life. And sending her to this horror that now lay beneath his feet.

He was remembering each detail of her when an insistent beeping from the console pulled his attention away from his memories. He clambered to his feet and went to the console. The TARDIS had located a beacon on the far side of the planet. The signal was weak, but it was there. With a small glimmer of hope tightening his chest, he sent the ship toward the beacon.

The Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS into a dark building. There were no lights that he could see. As he stepped a foot out of the door, he quickly snatched it back, remembering the Vashta Narata and realizing quickly that the TARDIS had created an air bubble around the ship, but there was no atmosphere left to speak of. As fast as he could, he donned his orange space suit and then went to work bringing every light he could find quickly up through the TARDIS and setting them up outside the door. He was wasting valuable time, and the anxiety was building in him but he kept going back inside. Every instinct was screaming at him to move, to find the beacon, but he kept placing lights. Finally, with a strong flashlight in one hand, his screwdriver in the other, and a comm unit attached to the belt of the suit, he went in search of the beacon. He used the sonic to track the signal.

The blast had destroyed everything. Walls were crumbling and in pieces. Books were everywhere, piled on the floor, on shelves, strewn every which way. And everything was covered in dust from the broken walls. He was in 43rd century fiction he knew, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was finding the beacon.

He crawled over toppled tables and shelves and beams and mountains of books until he located one of the library terminals that had been protected when two shelves had fallen over it, creating a tent of sorts. He touched the screen and it blazed to life, a too bright light in the darkness. He expected to see the familiar logo of The Library fill the screen, but instead the screen filled with text, quickly scrolling past. It was gibberish mostly, but one passage near the bottom caught his eye as it went past.

ljwiSUE29uSWEETIEjsiuaw8793

The Doctor gasped and grabbed for the comm unit. His eyes and flashlight scanned the terminal until he found an input. He plugged his comm unit into the terminal and downloaded the message, sweeping his flashlight around him while he waited for the data to transfer.

“Stay away!” he yelled loudly. “You remember me! You know me! And I warn you now to stay away!”

As soon as his comm unit beeped, he unplugged it and ran back to the TARDIS. He plugged the comm into the console and while the data was downloading, he ran more scans across what was left of The Library just to make sure. There were no humanoid life signs on the planet, still a multitude of Vashta Narata, but significantly fewer than there had been on his first trip. There were no other beacons, no movement, and no other signs of activity.

The Doctor brought the lights back in to the TARDIS, stripped off the suit, and set coordinates for the closest inhabited planet. While the ship flew, he watched as the TARDIS tried to decrypt the message. It was being frustratingly slow. The message had to be from River, didn't it? The knot of anxiety in his chest had not loosened. What if it wasn't from River? What if she was really gone?

Then the message began to appear from the jumbled text. “My Love,” it began. The Doctor gave a whoop of joy.

“Only the TARDIS will be able to decrypt this message. I am going to attempt something crazy. It may”

The message stopped. The Doctor's fingers gripped the console so tightly he heard something crack. It was River! He took a deep breath and waited. And waited. He stood waiting for a long while before a message appeared over the text.

“FILE CORRUPTED.”

“Keep trying!” he ordered his ship and he scanned the planet he was now close to. Part of him wanted to dance for joy, that he now had confirmation that the message was from River. But that doesn't mean she had survived. She had tried something. Tried what? His mind raced at everything she could have been trying to accomplish. Was she trying to get out? Was she trying to destroy herself? He couldn't face that possibility, so he turned to work. He picked the largest city, landed, and then immediately tapped into the city's info web. When he was online, he searched for information on The Library.

There was a wealth of information. He watched all of the interviews Lux had given when he returned from the Library. The man was a pompous git, the Doctor thought more than once as he watched. Over and over he said that the people would not have survived the Library if it had not been for the technology pioneered by the Lux Corporation. They had all been “saved” due to the advanced technology of the Core Mainframe. There was one thing he made very clear however, that Professor Song sacrificed herself for everyone being held in the core. She and the man known as the Doctor deserve praise and thanks, but Professor Song was to be held in the highest regard. There was something very sad in his eyes when Lux talked of River, sad mixed with awe and perhaps a bit of infatuation. The Doctor recognized it and knew it well.

There were several stories about Lux and his family (no mention of CAL and the real reason for the Library) and many about Professor Song and her team. The Doctor gazed at a picture of River, and before he realized it he was touching the screen, his fingers tracing the edge of her face. “Where are you, River?” he whispered, then forced himself to move on.

Lux had made one thing certain in his interviews, the Library was closed. Forever. No one would be going back. There were all sorts of theories about how to rid the planet of the Vashta Narata, but the Lux family forbade all of it.

After 402 years of silence, there had been a message broadcast from the computer system. “CAL and others have let go. The Library will sleep now.” 158 minutes after the message had been transmitted, the Library core had exploded outward, knocking what was left of the planet out of it's orbit. Everyone assumed that the AI in the core computer had decided to end it's own existence and blow up the planet. There had been no life on the planet except the Vashta Narata since the Lux/Song expedition, so no one investigated further.

The Doctor moved slowly to one of his chairs and sat heavily. There was a message, a message that River was going to attempt something crazy. He knew without question that whatever River had attempted had destroyed the Library. Had she done it intentionally? Had she chosen to end things? Or was she out there, somewhere? Had she escaped the Library somehow? He didn't dare hope, but he knew he must move forward, find out what had happened to River Song.


	3. Three

The Doctor paced. Back and forth across the control room floor. Back and forth. But finally the console beeped at him and more of the message appeared. Each letter appeared on the screen achingly slow.

_My Love, Only the TARDIS will be able to decrypt this message. I am going to attempt something crazy. It may destroy me, it may destroy The Library, but I have to try. I'm going to try to create a body. Won't go into specifics here. It's going to take a massive amount of energy and the outcome is unpredictable. I've reprogrammed and preset the teleports in case it works. I'm go_

And then it stopped. The Doctor was frozen in place, waiting for the next letter that never came. After long minutes, the FILE CORRUPT message flashed at him again. He slammed his fist down and a piece of the console flew off. The TARDIS hummed at him and he could hear her pleading in his head. The Doctor took a deep breath and muttered “Sorry” to his ship and sat down on the floor. 

He had to do something. He couldn't just sit there and do nothing, hoping the rest of the file could be read. River was going to try to create a body. How? Out of what? What in the world was she thinking? But she was brilliant, of course she was. If anyone could cheat being dead and a data ghost, it would be her. He knew that there was a chance that whatever she had planned had not worked, that River was gone. But he knew her, he had faith in her, and of course she would surprise him one more time.

He wanted so much to have been with her. He wished that they could have planned this together, working and discussing all the options. He would have loved to have watched her work out each minute detail, which he knew she would have. 

So where would she go? Where would she set the teleports to? The Library teleports could only move matter in space, not in time. But if he believed she could create a body, he believed she could turn the teleports into vortex manipulators. He had watched her fix her manipulator many times, he knew she could do it.

The Doctor stood and import coordinates into the console, setting a course for the little house they had shared on Darillium. Maybe she would come home, to their home. He arrived a few minutes after the sunrise they had watched together and then left behind. 

He walked in through the back door and the smell of fresh brewed coffee and River assaulted his senses. He was overjoyed and called “River!” but he soon realized the house was empty. The coffee cups were still in the sink from their last breakfast together, and the scent of coffee and her still clung to everything. After months away, it was almost too much. The Doctor shut his eyes and slammed the door as he walked out and back to the TARDIS.

Next he tried her home at the university. This time he was prepared when her scent assaulted him, but it didn't hurt any less. The house was sadly, maddeningly empty, but he walked through it anyway. He found himself in her bedroom. The Doctor laid down on River's bed and pulled her pillow against him. 

He pushed the sadness away and tried to think. Where would she go? The only other place he thought that it was likely that River would go to was to her parents. River had slipped in and out of New York many times during the time they spent on Darillium. The Doctor had never gone with her, no matter how much he had wanted to. Amy and Rory had apparently begged River to bring him with her, but he couldn't. He couldn't bear it. Amy and Rory had a son to raise now, they didn't need him coming in and bringing chaos and danger in his wake. He would not endanger the second Pond child and ruin his life. His Ponds were happy now and they deserved to live as best they could. But he knew of a place and time that Amy and Rory would be that he could see them if he wanted to. He could go to them, when they were older and away from New York and and ask about River.

The idea filled him with dread and misery. As much as he wanted to find River, the last thing he wanted to do was drop in on Amy and Rory and ask them if River had ever come back. What if she hadn't? What if he set the future by asking them and them providing confirmation?

He decided against it. But what was he going to do now? He walked back through her house, keeping his eyes forward. He was not going to mourn here. This was not the end.

The TARDIS hummed at him as he came in and he felt her urgency. He quickly went to the console and the Old Girl had done it, she had recovered the entire message.

_My Love, Only the TARDIS will be able to decrypt this message. I am going to attempt something crazy. It may destroy me, it may destroy The Library, but I have to try. I'm going to try to create a body. Won't go into specifics here. It's going to take a massive amount of energy and the outcome is unpredictable. I've reprogrammed and preset the teleports in case it works. I'm going to attempt to travel to London, to your safe place. 45643s.sio099029.1183 I will always find you, Sweetie, unless you find me first. xx_

The TARDIS had already read the coordinates and was in flight. The Doctor was beaming. For a quick second the thought entered his mind “What if she isn't there?” but he didn't even consider it, not for a moment. His wife would be there, she would be safe with Vastra, and nothing would stop him from getting to her now.


	4. Four

The Doctor banged loudly on the door of Vastra's house with his fist. The people walking by stopped and stared at him, but the angry glare on his face had them turning and scurrying away. “Open up!” he yelled and banged again, not stopping until the door opened. 

“Oh hello, Sir,” Strax said as he opened the door. 

“Where is she?” the Doctor said gruffly, pushing by the Sontaran and into the hall. 

“Always nice to see you, Sir,” Strax said, shutting the door. “Are we off to war again? I've been preparing an armory..”

“River!” the Doctor yelled, ignoring Strax. He opened the doors in front of him that led into the parlor and he strode through, looking around the room. When he found it empty he came back out and demanded again to Strax “Where is she?”

“I believe the Doctor is inquiring about our patient, Strax,” Vastra said in a calm voice, coming down the stairs. The Doctor's eyes flew to her and he moved toward the stairs. “Yes she is here,” Vastra said to him, stopping at the bottom step and holding out her arm in a halting motion.

The Doctor looked down at her arm and back up at her face incredulously. River was alive, and here. Alive! She had done it! He started to brush past Vastra but she grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Doctor, you need to be prepared before you see her.”

“Prepared?” he asked, suddenly registering what Vastra had said moments before. _Patient_. Fear suddenly engulfing him, he allowed her to lead him to the parlor and to the couch where they both sat down.

“Tell me,” he said gruffly, trying to maintain control but fear and anger running rampant in him.

“We found Professor Song laying in the hall when we returned from dinner about three weeks ago,” Vastra said.

“Three weeks?” the Doctor said. “That is not possible. I followed the coordinates to the second.”

“Yes, well,” Vastra said patiently. “There was obviously some... trouble where she came from. So perhaps she didn't arrive precisely when she intended to.” 

The Doctor's stomach dropped. There certainly had been _trouble_ where River came from.

“She is upstairs, Doctor. Alive, but barely. Whatever happened, Professor Song was badly burned. ” Vastra said, laying her hand on his arm. “It's obvious that she was caught in some sort of explosion.” She could see horror growing in the Doctor's eyes. “We fear she is gravely injured internally. She was unconscious when we found her and she has not awoken. We have been caring for her the best we can here, knowing that we could not take her to the hospital with her... unique biology. Jenny is tending to her now.”

The Doctor exhaled the breath he had been holding. He stood and looked up toward the ceiling. “Take me to her.

==

Vastra had told him he needed to be prepared, but it was still a shock when he opened the door and saw his wife for the first time. The skin on her face and arms was very red and angry. She was swollen and there were blisters and open wounds everywhere. Her glorious hair was singed and completely gone in patches. Her breathing was too shallow and raspy for his comfort. 

Jenny was applying an ointment of some kind to the horrible burn on her left arm, her movements gentle. She turned when the door opened and she stood when she saw the man in the doorway. “Doctor,” she said, relief in her voice as well as sympathy. “So happy you have come. We've tried to keep her comfortable,” she gestured toward River, “but she is not doing well at all.”

The Doctor stepped forward and stood near the bed. He said River's name gently and brushed his hand against her hair tenderly. He bent down to listen to her hearts and the double beat was faint and weak. 

Vastra had followed him into the room and he turned to the women. “We need to get her into the TARDIS immediately. I'll bring it up here if you will help me move her.” At Vastra's nod he ran down the stairs and brought his ship to the corner of the room.

The Doctor wanted to pick her up himself and carry her, but he didn't want to put that sort of pressure on her burns. So the four of them made a stretcher of River's bedsheet and carefully took her to the med bay in the TARDIS. They gingerly laid her on a cot and the Doctor started running scans immediately. 

The first thing the TARDIS told him was that this was not River Song. Her DNA was different. She looked like River, had two hearts and a respiratory bypass, but the DNA structure did not match River's. The DNA was human with a small amount of some unidentified non-human mixed in, but it was not a match.

The Doctor paused for a moment, horrified that this was not her, but he realized that if she had created a body then the DNA structure would not be the same. He wondered again how she had done it, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. He kept scanning and confirmed Vastra's suspicions that her internal organs were damaged, her brain especially. She had quite a severe concussion, her fluids were dangerously low, and several of her bones were broken along with a host of other issues. 

“I need to get her to the Sisters,” he said and Vastra nodded. 

“We should let the Doctor take her,” Vastra said, guiding Jenny and Strax toward the door and through the control room. 

“The Sisters?” Jenny asked. 

“Sisters of the Infinite Schism, the best hospital in the universe,” Vastra told her. “Professor Song has been a patient there before. If anyone can heal her, they can.”

Jenny looked back at the Doctor and could see the pain the man was feeling. He was watching his instruments but couldn't keep his eyes off River for more than a few seconds. She could see the desperation in him. Jenny nodded and they left the Doctor and River.

As soon as the trio had left the TARDIS, the engine started. Vastra stood with her hand on the bedpost and watched as the ship disappeared. When it was gone, she turned to Jenny. “I certainly didn't expect that one to be the one to come for her,” Vastra said.

“I know,” Jenny said, breaking into a smile, “But isn't it wonderful?”

“Yes it is,” Vastra agreed, taking Jenny's hand. “Yes, it is.”

==

The Doctor went back to the med bay and gingerly took River's hand. He didn't squeeze against her blistered skin, but just held it softly. He had been so eager to find her, so excited to see her, that he hadn't even considered finding her in such a state. She was weak, so very weak. But at the same time, she was so badly burnt. He saw burns from fire, but he also saw a few electrical burns at even intervals along her body. 

He looked carefully at her fingers. They were definitely River's fingers. They looked so very much like the ones he had held a thousand times before. He looked up and searched her face and looking past the horrible injuries, it looked very much like her face was exactly as it should be. How had she done it? How had she created this perfect body? Damaged now, but still so perfect. 

The body looked like River, but he couldn't help but wondering if she was in there, if she had really made it out of the data core. He noticed a nasty electrical burn at her temple and brushed it with his fingers, gently searching for his wife. 

He gasped when he felt her. This was most certainly his wife, his River. She did not feel exactly the same as before, but it was so strongly _her._ It was a Time Lord necessity to be able to identify loved ones after regeneration, and he knew for that this was his wife. He saw her memories, her love, her anger, her fears and her joy. A slow tear of happiness escaped his closed eyes. 

She was dreaming. He could see her standing in front of a classroom but everything around her was burning. She was screaming in pain and horror watching as her students died around her.

He pulled his fingers away quickly but then put them back. He sent her calming and happy thoughts and brought her out of the nightmare, but he could tell that she was still feeling pain and frankly, he could feel her slipping slowly away. With each double heartbeat, her body was slowly weakening.

He decided in an instant what he would do. River would be very angry with him if she knew, but what River Song didn't know or didn't remember wouldn't hurt her. In fact, it would heal her.

The Doctor bent and gently pressed his lips to hers as she had once done for him. The regeneration energy flowed from him, dancing around her head, then around her body, then enveloping both of them in a wave of warmth. 

He was more in control than she had been when she had done the same and he could feel it as her brain and internal organs healed. He felt the life returning to her, the strength returning to her heart beats. When the worst of the burns on her skin began to heal, he stopped. It killed him to leave her like this, leave her body scalded, but he knew that was what she would want. His last regeneration would have done what he wanted and given River everything he had, but he knew that River would need to do things her own way.

==

When the Sisters took her, they started growing new skin for her immediately. The doctors gave her pain medication and told him that she would sleep a while longer while the pain killers worked and that they should let him tend to her. He had just gotten her back and he didn't want her out of his sight, but he knew that they were right. That was why he had brought her to them, but it was still very difficult for him to leave her. He sat for a while in the waiting room, paced for what felt like a century, then decided to skip ahead. Well, skip ahead with one little pit stop.

==

That evening Jenny and Vastra were chatting by the fire after dinner when the sound of the TARDIS shattered the silence of their parlor. The Doctor, looking much more tired then he had earlier came out of the door. He seemed to search for his words, his eyes stuck to the floor. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said to them. “I didn't do it quite properly before.”

“Of course,” Vastra said, standing. “How is the Professor?”

“The Doctors said she would sleep a while, but she is much stronger now than she was,” he said. “I don't know what I would have done if....” His voice broke and Vastra came over and took his hand.

“Do you know what happened?” Vastra asked him.

“Not exactly, but I know that it happened when she escaped The Library,” the Doctor told her. Vastra gasped. “I know,” he said with a small smile. “River Song is quite amazing.”

“That she is,” Vastra nodded. “Well. How unexpected. Please bring her to tea when she has recovered. This is one story I must hear.”

“Yes, I will,” the Doctor said. “Thank you.” He turned to go but turned back and very quickly and very unexpectedly pulled Vastra in for a quick hug. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought Chapter 4 would be the last one, but it was getting a little long so I decided to split it. I know, I'm sorry! :) But I promise in Chapter 5 we will learn how River did it and if everything is alright.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was imaging the Doctor looking at River just like this the whole chapter  
> [click](http://rivermelsmelody.tumblr.com/post/135939063279/when-you-love-the-doctor-its-like-loving-the)

When River Song woke up, the Doctor was sitting beside her, gently holding her hand. He was watching her closely and noticed the first little movements that indicated she was coming out of it. He leaned close to her and when she opened her eyes, he smiled broadly.

River tried to speak but nothing came out but a small squeak. The Doctor rushed and grabbed the cup of water on the side table and pushed the straw to River's lips. She took a few small sips. 

“Just take it slow,” the Doctor said, his hand smoothing her hair

River lifted her hand to touch the Doctor's arm but her arm didn't move the way it should. She looked down and saw both arms covered in bandages. River looked up at the Doctor questioningly.

“Skin grafts,” he said, setting the cup down.

River looked confused for half a second and then horror flooded her features. Her heart rate jumped and her breathing increased. 

“Calm down, River. Calm down,” the Doctor said. He moved quickly to sit on the edge of the bed and he took her face in his hands. He touched his fingers to her temple trying to help her. “It's okay. You are okay. You made it.”

He spoke softly to her until she looked and felt calmer. When she had calmed down, the Doctor gave her some more water and took her hand again. 

“You remember?” he asked, frowning. “The explosion.”

River nodded, her eyes haunted. She started to try to speak again, but the Doctor stopped her.

“Shhh, just be quiet for now,” he said. “You are in the hospital. I brought you back to the Sisters. You were burned quite badly, but they are taking good care of you. Are you in pain?” River shook her head to indicate no.

“Don't lie to me, River Song,” the Doctor said, leaning in close to her again. He looked into her eyes and could see the pain there. He called the nurse who checked her and gave her a fresh dose of painkillers. 

“She'll sleep again because of the medication,” the nurse said to him. “But she woke up. That's a very good sign. She's a fighter, I can tell.”

“You have no idea,” he said softly, sitting back down to hold her hand.

==

The next time River woke, the Doctor stood outside the room as the doctors and nurses fussed over her. When he came back in, she was propped up on some pillows and looking more alert than the last time. 

“They say I'm going to recover,” River said. Her voice weak and hoarse. “Burn treatment in this time leaves very little scarring apparently. The doctor said he was surprised that I was not injured internally, considering what must have happened to me.” She paused and looked at the Doctor. “What did you do?”

“How do you feel?” the Doctor asked.

“Better than I should,” River whispered giving the Doctor a pointed look. 

The Doctor sat in calm silence. There was no way he was going to apologize.

“Sweetie,” River said, “Your lives are more important...”

“Shush!” the Doctor interrupted her, no longer calm. “Just stop right there. There was no way in hell I was going to lose you just when I had found you again, and that was certainly what was going to happen. You were going to die before you even had the chance to live!”

River opened her mouth to interrupt, but the Doctor leaned close and put a finger to her lips, his words still harsh. “This is not up for discussion. You created a body, heaven knows how, and there was no way I was going to let it die.”

River searched his face. She had no intention of letting this go and she was just as stubborn as he was. But then it hit her. It had worked. Her whole crazy plan had worked. She had known that there would be a chance that the whole thing would explode in her face, and apparently that was exactly what had happened. But here she was, whole and sane, and the Doctor was with her.

River reached up and weakly took the lapel of his coat and pulled with the small amount of strength she had. It didn't take much. The Doctor leaned down and kissed her. His kiss was firm, but he didn't press her. When he lifted his lips from hers, River laughed. It wasn't her normal happy laugh, not much more than a squeak really, but she laughed. 

The Doctor leaned back and smiled at River's smug look. “And yes, there she is, the cat the ate the canary.” When River giggled, the Doctor couldn't keep the happiness out of his voice. “And quite deservedly so. River Song, you are a wonder.”

River's stomach grumbled loudly, and they both laughed. “How did you do it?” he asked, looking at her stomach in surprise. “It's incredible, a miracle really. It apparently even all works properly.”

River reached for his hand. “Sweetie, Could you ring for the nurse? I believe I need something to eat. As it turns out, I'm famished.”

River was very disappointed when the orderly brought in a bowl of clear broth. She was hoping for something more like a bacon cheeseburger from her Earth childhood. But of course at the first spoonful, her stomach revolted. It took a few tries before her stomach accepted the broth, but eventually it did and the Doctor helped her until she finished the whole bowl. 

After she finished, he could see that her eyes were heavy. “You rest now,” he said to River, stroking her hair. 

“Don't you think I've slept enough?” she asked, grabbing for him weakly.

The Doctor wanted nothing more than to gather her close, kiss her again, and weep with happiness that she was here, and she was River. But instead he moved his hand down and brushed her temple and watched as she instantly fell asleep. “Husband skills,” he said softly, smiling down on her.

==

The next day, River was even stronger, her voice was clearer, and the Doctor could wait no longer. 

“River, how did you do it? How are you here?” he asked, sitting on the side of her bed.

River's eyes glittered with mirth. “Well,” she said, taking the last bite of the ice cream the Doctor had brought her. “It certainly wasn't easy.”

“I should think not,” the Doctor said, taking the bowl from her and putting it on the bedside table. “But you did it anyway, didn't you?”

River nodded. “I started planning it not long after you... um... uploaded me.”

The Doctor cringed. “I'm so sorry, River. I'm so sorry I wasn't there. A Doctor who knew you would have known that you would hate being trapped and would have never have done that to you. But once it was done, it was done and there was nothing...”

“I know,” she said, taking his hand. “But maybe that's why it had to be that way. And older Doctor who understands endings, he would have let me go.”

The Doctor looked at their hands, not meeting her eyes.

“It's okay,” she said gently, “I know. I know.” After a long moment of silence, she said, “You said goodbye to me when the sun rose on Darillium and you knew it was the end. And here I am, mucking all that up again. If you want....”

The Doctor leaned forward and kissed her to shut her up. He kissed her gently but River wanted more. She deepened the kiss and the Doctor indulged her. When they parted, he stayed close to her face and looked into her eyes. “Is that settled?” 

River nodded and leaned against him for another kiss. When they parted, the Doctor sat back and said, “Good. Now, please continue.”

“The datacore soon became stale. I sent away the fake children soon enough and I grew tired of every book ever written. You are right, I felt trapped and I hated it. I waited. You had said in so many words that it was the end for us, but I hoped you would come. And you didn't. How long have I been gone for you?”

“Almost three months,” he answered.

“Ah, that explains it,” she said, a far away look in her eyes. “For you, I came back before you could even miss me.”

“River,” the Doctor started to interrupt her, but she continued on.

“But for me, it was a very long time. I was miserable, so, I wanted to come back to the world. I thought as a part of a computer system, maybe I could communicate with the TARDIS. It look a lot of searching, a lot of going out into any computer system I could get in to, looking for a connection to the TARDIS, and eventually she heard me. I don't know what you were doing, but I found you. I started popping in, but I could never find this you. It was always my bow tied Sweetie, and you were so very sad. I did my best to reach out, but you never heard me

“I heard you,” the Doctor said, his voice rough. “I was just in too much pain to listen properly. I made a lot of mistakes during that time.”

“I wanted so much to comfort you,” River said, running her fingers along his hand, running her thumb against his ring. “In the beginning, Vastra and Jenny cared for you, and I asked the TARDIS to get a message to them since you weren't listening. That's how I started communicating with them.”

“But just communicating wasn't enough. I wanted to come back, come back to you. And I wanted to live again. I wanted to find you, this you, and plan and work out how to do this, but the TARDIS I always found was too early. I couldn't find an older you. So I set about to do it myself.”

River paused and the Doctor handed her the water cup. She took a long sip. “If I was going to do this, I wanted to be the same as I was, at least as much as was possible. So I hacked in to the Stormcage database, where I knew they would have a copy of all my medical records. And they had full scans of my body. It was exactly the roadmap I needed. Then I learned everything the Library could teach me on human biology and Time Lord biology.”

The Doctor watched River, enraptured. She was amazing, absolutely amazing. It took everything he had not to ask her a million questions, but there was only one he needed to ask now.

“Trenzalore, my grave.” he said. “Do you remember that? Did it happen for you?”

“Yes, my love. I was there with you. Our mental connection had developed over all my visits to the TARDIS, even though you didn't know it. So when you touched me, I was so present in your mind that we both felt it. It was...” River trailed off.

“Yes it was,” the Doctor said, grasping her hand a little too tightly. “I thought then it would be the last time I would ever see you.”

“And I knew it wouldn't be,” River said, her smug smile returning. “I don't know why I remember it, maybe it was the mental link, but I do remember it. I knew you would rewrite the timeline and be around for Darillium, and that is what strengthened my resolve to get out. Every time we think it is the last time, it never is.” River sat up a little and leaned toward him. “I once told you that happily ever after was just time. Well, we always seem to find just a little bit more, don't we?”

The Doctor shook his head. There was nothing to do but marvel at her. Defying every ending, including death.

River continued her story, “Once I decided for certain to come back, I made a plan. I had to work with what I had, and what I had was a Library filled with books, computer equipment, and a million million Vashta Narata. The Library has cleaning robots. You never saw them, but they were there. I reprogrammed them and used them to piece together a robot who could build the equipment I would need.”

“It was very slow work. Tediously slow. Dragging equipment from all over the planet to my work space. Learning everything about robotics and energy and matter transfer. It took a long time.”

“My friends started disappearing,” River said sadly. “I would come back from working who knows how long and someone would be gone. Eventually it was just CAL and I.” River looked down at their hands. “I think we were bad for her, in the end. If we hadn't have come, she would have been a happy child, happy to live in her delusion of a life for eternity. But we brought the outside world in, Doctor. After that, she knew was she was, and that her life had been over for a long time. But she stayed with me, stayed until the end.” 

River was crying and the Doctor laid down next to her and pulled her against him as gently as he could, careful of the places he knew she was burned the most. “She was so good, and so kind, and we destroyed her,” River sobbed. The Doctor kissed the bandage on her forehead and held her until she calmed. He couldn't argue with River's logic, he knew it was true. Another victim of the Doctor's “helping”.

They laid together for a long while until the orderly came in with River's next meal. Chicken soup, this time with a few vegetables and noodles. The Doctor took the bowl and helped River with the hot soup. River looked down at the bowl. “Are you ready for the disgusting part of the story?” she said, taking a spoonful. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you remember when you fed a chicken leg to the Vashta Narata?” she asked, swallowing and then taking another spoonful.

“Yes,” he said hesitantly, not sure where she was going. 

“Where did it go?” River asked innocently, quietly eating her soup.

“What do you mean, where did it go? The Vashta Narata ate it,” the Doctor said.

“How did it eat it, Sweetie?” River asked. “They have no stomachs to digest it, they don't eliminate any waste. Where did it go?”

The Doctor stopped and stared. “No..” he said.

River nodded. “I studied them, looked them up in the Library. They take in the particles of the meat, converting them into the base materials and energy. When they are so heavy with food, they divide, like a cell, and become another Vashta Narata. They are literally made of what they eat.”

“So you....” the Doctor asked, getting excited.

“I trapped them and redistributed then, or maybe reconstituted is the better word. I know it's terribly morbid, but I made this body from what they had eaten.” River's eyes turned sad. “I will carry Dave, Dave, Anita, and Miss Evangelista with me always, as they all helped me... be here.”

“River,” the Doctor said taking one of her hands and held it up, looking at it, “that's impossible. It's simply impossible.”

“I know. I didn't really think it would work,” River said, following the Doctor's gaze to her hand, “but it did. It really did.” River looked over the rest of her body at all of the bandages. “Something went wrong though, didn't it?”

“Circuits must have overloaded,” the Doctor said. “The equipment you built must not have been able to contain the amount of energy that would have been created. It was planet shattering, literally.” He looked up at her. “You blew half the planet to dust and knocked it out of it's orbit, just to come home. It was horribly risky and dangerous. It's miracle you made it. The explosion must have happened just as the teleports engaged.”

“I felt the heat and the pain,” River said, laying back. “It was the first thing I had actually physically felt in a very long time. It was horrible. And then I woke up here with you.”

“You made it where you were going,” the Doctor said, laying back down next to her. “Vastra found you, and then when I found your message, I followed you there.” He remembered how she had looked when he first saw her, how near death she had been. “You blew up a planet and scared me to death, River Song,” he whispered to her. The Doctor cradled her face tenderly with one hand and kissed her thoroughly. “I really hate you sometimes,” he said, his eyes full of love.

“No you don't,” she said smiling, her eyes just as full. 

==

Epilogue

==

“Wow,” River said, standing in the TARDIS door, looking down at what was left of the Library planet.

The Doctor stood leaning against the console, watching her. He had brought her back to see the destruction she had escaped from. He walked up behind her and she leaned back against him. Her skin had healed beautifully and he ran a hand down her arm. Just a few places still felt rough under his palm.

“I destroyed The Library,” she said, amazed. 

“You once destroyed the entirety of time and space,” he said in her ear. “Half a planet full of nasty meat eating shadows isn't all that much, really.”

River turned in his arms and looked up at him. “There were good people who were lost on that planet, good good people.” 

“And we will remember them,” he said pulling her close. “and I will thank them every day. Having one more happily ever after with you is a gift I'll never forget.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that was a worthy ending. The science? WibblyWobblyTimeyWimeyBadFanFictiony. Thank you so much for all the comments on this fic. You guys really make writing worth it.


End file.
